Forgery

by Sabina Murray

  “I thought you were going to Scotland.”

  I turned around, and there was Amanda.

  “Don’t suppose you’d want to step outside and get some air, have a cigarette,” she said.

  “Sure, why not?”

  We walked outside, and I gave Amanda a cigarette. She hadn’t smoked much in Greece but now, newly re-created, seemed to need it. “Nice necklace,” I said. “Is it Boucheron?”

  “You tell me,” she said. “It was a gift.”

  “Something to take the sting off of Jack’s death?”

  Amanda judged me coolly and laughed. “Why do I always talk to you when you are, without fail, so insulting?”

  “Because you trust me,” I said. I might have added that she, in her constant morphing, needed someone to remind her of who she really was, but I didn’t.

  “Rupert,” she said, and laughed again, “I don’t need your approval.” She smiled a very wide, very nice smile, all those teeth, those handsome cheekbones. She tossed her cigarette into the street and turned to leave. I watched her disappear through the glass doors, and then it was just me, and me reflected back. She hadn’t needed to finish what she was saying because I understood. She didn’t need my approval. She had everyone else’s, and she was now a very wealthy woman.

  Clive and I sat side by side at a bar mostly inhabited by Columbia students, which is why I knew it. I had been frequenting it for nearly fifteen years. I was still in my tux, and Clive was wearing a black turtleneck and some boots. He looked like a beatnik, which made me want to laugh.

  “So how wealthy is old Amandirt?”

  “Well,” I said, “she’s got a lot of Jack’s works. She’s only sold two of them, but they fetched close to twenty thousand apiece.”

  “How is that possible?” said Clive. “How much does a real piece of art sell for, one of those little Degas ballerinas?”

  “It’s not my forte, Clive. But you and I both know there’s no such thing as real art. People don’t care. Something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it, and people like stories. Anything of Jack’s now has this amazing story. I read a piece in the Times last week about his idealism. His guerrilla army. He’s as hip as Che Guevara, only Jack made art.”

  “Well, when the art runs out, what will Amanda do?”

  “Don’t worry about Amanda,” I said. “She was wearing a necklace. I’m pretty sure it was a Boucheron, probably from the 1850s. The gold alone had to be worth quite a bit.”

  “What’s your point?” asked Clive.

  “She didn’t know anything about it. A gift, she said. She has at least one wealthy suitor, so even if she’s not that cash rich, her stock has gone way up.”

  Clive drank some beer. There was something wholesome about sitting around drinking beer in the dark while the rain pounded on the pavement. I noticed a young college student eyeing Clive, and I whispered to him. “You have an admirer.”

  Clive looked over at him, bored, then looked back at me. “I’m tired of America.”

  “You’ve only been back for two weeks.”

  “I can’t stand people like that. He only wants me to educate him, and then he’ll feel all full of experience, and then he’ll marry his girlfriend.”

  I wanted to say Clive didn’t know that, but it occurred to me that he might.

  “I want to go back to Europe,” he said.

  “You want to go back to Aspros.”

  Clive nodded. He raised his beer, and we clinked glasses and drank some more. “You must wonder what we were all doing there at the same time. You, me, Thanasi, Jack …”

  “I have,” I said, “and have come to the conclusion that there was less coincidence than on first appearance.”

  “Really?”

  “You never met Kostas, so you wouldn’t understand. Nikos’s father wanted my Uncle William to get the best possible piece of classical art, preferably statuary. He knew the only place to get that was Aspros.”

  “But it’s a fake,” whispered Clive.

  “It is still classical. It is still statuary. Uncle William loves it. What would be achieved by my telling him?” I undid my tie because it was choking me.

  “So Kostas knew it was a fake?”

  “He knew it was an opportunity.”

  “I thought he was your uncle’s friend.”

  “He is.” I looked at Clive, who was feeling naïve. “My uncle is deliriously happy. Kostas made a little money. Neftali hosted a fabulous six-week party. I spent the summer in Greece.”

  “Do you think Nikos knew?”

  “Knew what? Remember, it was my responsibility to authenticate. And there is real stuff on Aspros. That pot I dug up with the nautical figures is real. Besides, it doesn’t make any difference to Nikos. Real. Fake. It’s all ugly to him. He doesn’t like anything before Brancusi. Not even Rodin.”

  “I absolutely agree,” said Clive. “Of course I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Besides,” I continued, “we’ve had a couple of people come by the house, including one of Uncle William’s old college buddies who teaches art at Yale, and no one knows it’s a fake.”

  “That’s amazing,” said Clive. “Does it bother you, Rupert, that it’s a fake?”

  And I shook my head. Because it didn’t, not at all. “What isn’t?” I said.

  I spent the next four months in Scotland, and there, I am sorry to say, nothing exceptional happened, good or bad, except that Olivia was much the same for the first three and a half months, and then she declined. How to say this in a way that makes sense? I am not good at grief, which is strange, given the fact that I am constantly attracting it. Uncle William had told me that this was my own fault, marrying a terminally ill woman. What was I thinking? Was I thinking?

  Olivia and I were happy for a while. She seemed to have a lot of property all over the place, an apartment in Edinburgh, a cottage in the Highlands, a sleek modern flat in London. She had me weed the garden at the cottage and pointed out that I’d pulled out all the flowers too. They weren’t blooming. How was I supposed to know?

  Nathan got Clive a job as errand boy in the London branch of his publishing firm. Clive didn’t make much money, and his apartment was rat-infested, but he seemed very happy. I asked Olivia if he could stay in the London flat, but she said her in-laws also used it. Olivia encouraged me to visit Clive and I did, every two weeks or so. Clive had a stylish haircut, and at his suggestion I began growing mine out.

  The cottage was four miles from the nearest town. There was nothing to do, which is why I’d attempted gardening. I began taking long hikes, walking around with a stick like an extra from a Robin Hood movie. I would walk for hours. I found this behavior remarkable, but Olivia just laughed and said, “Everyone does that around here. That’s what the Highlands are for.” After one such hike—it was a windy day and I was beginning to question the wisdom of growing my hair—I returned to see a strange car pulled up in front of the house. When I reached the house I heard Olivia yelling, and then a hushed man’s voice volleying back, and then Olivia, all outrage, yelling again. I swung the door open and was surprised to a see a man built like a fireplug, with receding black hair and sideburns. I was a bit surprised, because the man appeared to be Olivia’s deceased husband.

  I said, “Is everything all right?”

  To which the man responded, “Are you that Rupert Brigg, then?”

  And I said, “Most likely.”

  And he looked at me and then at Olivia and laughed so loudly in my face that it stirred my hair. He then left in his car with a great crunching and spitting of gravel.

  After he was gone, I turned to Olivia and asked, “Was that your deceased husband?”

  Olivia was sitting in the red armchair. “Don’t be funny, Rupert. I’m not in the mood.”

  I decided that protesting my sincerity was not the right tack, so I went over to her, sat on the arm of the chair, and took her hand.

  “That was my brother-in-law,” she sa
id.

  “He finds me very amusing,” I said.

  Olivia smiled a little and then one eyebrow shot up intelligently. “Do you still want to get married?”

  “Are you asking me?” I said. “Because you could be more romantic.”

  The next day we drove down to the town hall and after calling in the gardener, who was trimming the hedge in front, and flagging down an old woman who was walking her dog, we got our witnesses, got married, then went over to the pub, and bought a couple of rounds for whoever was interested in drinking at two o’clock in the afternoon. And, not surprisingly, there were quite a few takers.

  I had never driven a car, so Olivia taught me in the field out behind the cottage. She didn’t think it was a good idea to bring a bottle of whiskey, but I did, and we had great fun driving around. I drove into a tree once, but we were only going ten miles an hour: I was trying to figure out how to get in second gear and was looking at the shift. I mastered second and then, having finally made it into third, tried to steer around a sheep, couldn’t, tried to stop, but hit it. There was a moment of remorse. Olivia and I got out of the car and walked around to inspect the fallen. The sheep was lying quite still, peacefully, and I felt very bad for it, but suddenly the sheep leaped up, looked me straight in the eye, gave an angry bleat, and trotted off.

  I began driving Olivia to Edinburgh for her appointments. There was morphine, to make her more comfortable, but she didn’t like to take it unless she felt really bad. I met Clive in London for his birthday, at Olivia’s insistence, and when I came back she was in the hospital. I packed up my stuff from the cottage. I realized I probably wouldn’t be hiking around the Highlands anymore and ceremoniously threw my walking stick off the side of a mountain. My lonely drive to Edinburgh was miserable, a thin sheeting rain, and my thoughts were as black as they get. And she was fine for a week, and then one day she asked me, “What was the name of your son again?”

  And I said, “I never told you.”

  And she said, “I’d like to know.”

  And I said, “Michael.”

  It was about three in the afternoon. I told her I was slipping out to have a cigarette and took the elevator down, my mind tired and blank. I went outside the hospital; I needed the fresh air. I was about to light the cigarette when I was overwhelmed by a feeling of panic. Michael. Michael. Michael. I ran inside. There was a crowd of people in front of the elevator. I took the stairs. Olivia was on the fifth floor. She was due for some medicine. That’s why the nurse had gone in there, but when I arrived there were four nurses and a doctor and I was once more reminded of how Olivia never wasted her words. How to the very end she was thinking of me.

  At maybe 8 P.M. I came conscious weeping in the bar across the street. The bartender was looking at me, concerned but kindly.

  I said, “My wife just died.”

  “You told me,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I’m used to it,” he responded. “It’s the location.”

  I pushed the half glass of whiskey across the bar.

  “You shouldn’t be alone,” the bartender said. “Is there someone I can call?”

  “My closest friend is in London.”

  “Do you have the number?”

  The bartender called Clive. Not only that, he had the bellhop from up the street check me into a hotel. He didn’t think I should be going back to the apartment. He was more than a bartender, he was an official manager of grief. I called Uncle William, who listened for an entire hour on the phone, until I felt the need to throw up and had to let him go. Then I called Clive over and over, wondering where the hell he could be. And then at midnight, there was a knock on the door and there he was, in Edinburgh, having taken the first train out of London.

  Clive stayed for the funeral. I was pretty much drunk, right up until the night before, but then Clive and I thought it best to dry out. I knew Olivia wouldn’t want me and Clive snonkered and staggering at her funeral, even if it were the result of genuine grief. We went to see Waiting for Godot, and Clive fell asleep.

  Olivia was to be buried in the Macintyre family vault. Apparently, she’d promised her deceased husband. There were quite a few people gathered at that funeral, then at the side of the grave, and honestly, most of them seemed interested in me. Apparently, there had been quite a set of rumors circulated about me, the young opportunistic Yank. The fact that I had spent the last week in the company of an even younger, obviously gay man had done nothing to subdue the gossip. I took heart in the fact that somewhere Olivia was witnessing this and when she wasn’t laughing, she felt bad for me.

  After the funeral, Olivia’s brother-in-law came up to me and said, “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

  And I said, “I’m that Rupert Brigg.”

  And he said, “I’m Guy Macintyre.” And we shook hands. “I don’t like to bring up business at funerals, but rumor has it you’re returning to America tomorrow.”

  “That one’s actually true,” I said. I caught Macintyre eyeing Clive and hoped to God that Clive wouldn’t wink back.

  “I’m going to pack,” said Clive. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

  I turned to Macintyre and said, “Do you want me to sign something?”

  “Maybe we could have a little chat,” he suggested. I nodded and we made our way to his car, that same sleek car I had seen in front of the cottage. First I got into the driver’s seat, thinking it was the passenger seat, and then I got out. Macintyre gave me a funny look, but I didn’t care. When we were driving he said, “My brother loved Olivia very much.”

  And I said, “Of course he did.”

  This both surprised Macintyre and shut him up. He drove us to a street of small restaurants. When we were out of the car, he said, “You look like you could use a drink.”

  “Do I?” I said.

  “I could too,” he said. “I know it’s Olivia’s funeral, but it was like burying my brother all over again.”

  Then he fixed me with a look I didn’t care for, and who cared? I only wanted my drink, to sign whatever it was he had in the oxblood briefcase, and to get as far away from him as I possibly could.

  We got our drinks. He ordered a Scotch, and I got an Irish whiskey, which I hoped would bother him. He said, “How long did you know Olivia?”

  “Not long enough,” I said.

  “You met in Greece?”

  “Is that a question? Because it sounds like an accusation. I’m really not in the mood for this. What’s in the briefcase?”

  “The will, for one thing.”

  “I haven’t read it.”

  Macintyre clicked open the briefcase and studied me. “She left you everything. Of course, we’re going to have to contest some of it.”

  “You can have the cottage. I don’t care.”

  “There’s also the castle.”

  “She had a castle?”

  “Not a big one.”

  “You can have it.”

  “And there’s the apartment in Edinburgh.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “And the flat in London.”

  “I hate London. It’s full of English people.”

  Macintyre stopped rifling through his files. He looked at me with some sympathy. “Mr. Brigg, I think I’ve misjudged you.”

  “Yes, you have,” I said. “I loved Olivia.” I took some whiskey. “And I’m not gay.”

  Even after signing off on all the Macintyre property, I was still left with a sizable sum. I didn’t really want it, but then I realized that with it, I could do something different. I didn’t want to go back to New York. I could go live in Greece. I could buy a house on Aspros. But then I remembered that in the winter it would be just me and the caretaker and Thanasi. And Tomas, if Nikos hadn’t rescued him. At least Tomas spoke some English. I thought of Andreas, the teenager who had worked on the dig, and pictured the two of us sitting in a café, if any were open in the winter, having a conversation something
like, “Do you like to eat oranges?” “Yes, I like to eat oranges. Do you like to eat oranges?”

  No. There was no returning to Aspros. Aspros was a magical kingdom built on a cloud. Aspros was more of memory than of place.

  I had a final drink with Clive at Heathrow.

  “I know you won’t write, “he said, “but try to keep feeling like my friend, because I don’t know what I’m doing after London and when I try to move in with you I don’t want it to be awkward.”

  “You’re always welcome.” I felt indebted to Clive. “But I’m not sure I’m going back to New York. I don’t think I can face it. All those people feeling sorry for me—or, worse, not caring at all.”

  “Where else would you go? Los Angeles?”

  “Why Los Angeles?”

  “The sunshine. I think you could use it.”

  I exhaled in a defeated way.

  Clive watched me. “I think you should keep busy.”

  “Busy?” I considered this. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Clive, but I don’t do anything. That makes keeping busy difficult.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Rupert.” Clive seemed convinced of this, which showed an anomalistic faith in himself. “You’re an antiques dealer. It’s not fancy, but it is a profession. You should open a shop.”

  “Open a shop?” I sounded as disparaging as I could, but Clive was not easily discouraged.

  “What are your options? I know you miss Olivia, and you probably have this wonderful image of you drinking yourself to death. But you won’t do it. You might try, but you won’t succeed.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because you’re a survivor, like me. We have that in common.”

  And of course I couldn’t argue with Clive, because I’d tried that variety of grief before and had failed.